Driving: Super Mario Bros Movie Credit & Copyright: Nintendo, Illumination Entertainment & Universal pictures
At the end of Todd Field's multi-Oscar-nominated film Tar, «fired» conductor Cate Blanchett is doomed to a fate worse than unemployment: leading an orchestra at a costume concert for fans of Monster Hunter, the popular fantasy video game. Blanchett herself, on the other hand, arrived at the Tara set fresh from Hungary, where Borderlands, the upcoming video game-inspired film, was being filmed. Based on a four-episode shooter series that began in 2009, the screenplay was written by Craig Mazin, Emmy-winning screenwriter for Chernobyl and co-creator of HBO's acclaimed Zombie Apocalypse series The Last of us». TV series adapted from the 2013 PlayStation survival adventure game.
Until recently, such designs have mostly rightly been dismissed as licensed cash created exclusively for fans with low standards. But over the past few years, a strange shift has taken place. Now that Hollywood's most famous talents are rushing into the button battle, is the video game movie finally getting respectable?
For now, «respectable» still insists on it. The latest addition to the canon to hit theaters this weekend is The Super Mario Bros. Movie from Nintendo and Illumination, the creators of Minions. It's hardly a hit with critics: Rotten Tomatoes' first wave of reviews skewed only 53% of positive reviews, and personally, as I wrote earlier this week, «no film has ever made me feel like I lead the frogs in a circle. branch of «Toys R Us». However, it is predicted to be one of the highest-grossing hits of 2023, with early ticket sales suggesting it will recoup its estimated $100m (£80m) budget twice as much in its first weekend alone.
There are several reasons for this, one of which is the lack of competition. Mario is the first major family movie to release since Puss in Boots: The Last Wish in early February, and it remains all alone until Disney's The Little Mermaid remake comes out in late May. But the other is the sheer size of Super Mario Bros.'s target audience. With over 60% of British adults and 93% of children playing video games, Mario is one of the most respected, accessible and innovative series. Since its release in 1985, the first part of the original Nintendo Entertainment System, which looked like a cross between a VHS player and Star Wars props, has sold more than 413 million units (excluding racing, sports and third-party games) and earned more than 30 billion dollars around the world. The most profitable movie franchise, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is more than $1 billion behind that pace.The value of game studios reflects these incredible numbers. Activision Blizzard, creator of lucrative perennials like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, is worth nearly $67 billion, putting all its Hollywood equivalents aside except for Disney and Sony. Meanwhile, on Sky TV and its streaming platform Now, The Last of Us has attracted more than three million regular viewers in the UK, making it more popular than the Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon. No wonder studio boardrooms are said to be filled with executives pointing their fingers and muttering, «Where are ours?» /> Cate Blanchett will star in the upcoming Borderlands movie based on the video game series. Photo: Amy Sussman/Getty Images
Answer? Probably, «don't worry — on the way.» In addition to Blanchett-backed Borderlands, this year will also see the release of Gran Turismo, Sony's sports drama starring Orlando Bloom and inspired by Sony's racing game series. Filming is expected to begin on the third Sonic the Hedgehog movie and be ready for release around Christmas 2024; the first two took $710 million for the two, despite opening at opposite ends of the pandemic. Bigger games are gathering in the fog: Metal Gear Solid, starring Oscar Isaac; Silent Hill with Jeremy Irvine; Netflix adaptations for Horizon Zero Dawn and BioShock.
The current gold rush started around 2018 and has so far produced a number of hits, some of which have even received good reviews: two existing Sonics, the Da Vinci Code-style teen adventure Uncharted, the monster movie Rampage, the 2018 Tomb Raider reboot, and Detective Pikachu . This cream-colored rodent hails from a series of pokemon adventures with cute monsters that outshine even Mario commercially, earning an estimated $90-$100 billion worldwide. Notably, they were all mainstream releases rated PG or 12A, a far cry from the hard-hitting B-movie adaptations of the 2000s such as Max Payne, Doom, Resident Evil, and Hitman.
What changed? Chris Schilling, associate editor of video game magazine Edge, attributes the move to two decisive factors, the first of which is the age of the leadership team. “Today, decision makers and established writers and directors belong to the first generation to grow up with video games,” he explains. “People in their 40s and 50s have a deep understanding of visual language and media history that people just a few years older might not.”
In good shape: 2021's Mortal Kombat grossed over $84 million. Photo: Mark Rogers
Take a look back at the early 2000s when studios struggled to find a ready source for franchises outside of comics, and you can see that the generational change hasn't happened yet. Instead, Hollywood made a big bet on legends and boyish history: Robin Hood; Conan the barbarian; Tarzan; Peter Pan and Hercules (twice each); the battle of Thermopylae (in 300 and its continuation); Myth of Perseus (Battle and Wrath of the Titans). Many of them failed: John Carter, based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom novels, lost $200 million to Disney, and the same studio's remake of The Lone Ranger fared little better. Board games were also considered for a moment. Peter Berg and Universal brought us the (terrible) film Battleship in 2012, while there were plans for feature-length films based on Monopoly and the American children's film Candy Land.
According to Schilling, one of the decisive factors in the rise of video game adaptations was the inferiority complex that arose on the other side of every licensing deal. “As big as the industry got, there was still a craving for prestige and wider artistic recognition that only an older medium like cinema could provide,” he says. “One of the reasons The Last of Us was so successfully adapted into a television series is because it was already halfway there. It borrowed from existing post-apocalyptic fiction like The Road, the script was extraordinarily strong, and the performance capture [the process of digitizing the movements of the actors in the game] was cutting edge.»
The first two Sonic the Hedgehog movies grossed a total of $710 million. Creators: Paramount Pictures and Sega of America.
Schilling suggests that AAA games, known as «AAA», the game industry's equivalent of blockbusters, are often made specifically for such crossovers to be as painless as possible. Take, for example, the God of War series, “which started out as pure slashing combat,” he explains. “Then when Sony relaunched it in 2018 after the success of The Last of Us, it got a deeper story, richer characters, and basically became a prestige project.”
End? «It's a complete franchise of everything, isn't it?» Schilling laughs. “Movies and series between games and vice versa, maximizing all possible revenue streams for both fans and casual audiences. Like Hollywood, [the video game industry] has a lot of envy of Marvel.”
Just as superhero fatigue seems to be taking its toll, movies may have found their new passion. In the meantime, we should probably congratulate Lydia Tar on a successful career move.
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